I've been thinking about current events all week, especially our
low, miserable betrayal by country club Republicans, and I've come to
a conclusion that many readers may feel disturbed by or chagrined
about, as it pleases them. It first arose during an argument online
about the brief document I've written and appended to most of my
e-mail for quite a long while, now. Intended to correct the Founding
Fathers' gravest omission, it is a penalty clause for the Bill of
Rights.

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of
government, who attempts, through legislative act or other
means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the
first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the
Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office,
and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits
including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

Among the individuals I was arguing with, I finally realized, was
one of those people I have labeled "tar-babies". (You'll have to look
up Joel Chandler Harris, who, I warn you, is presently among the Top
40 of the Politically Incorrect.) Basically, what this cybergink was
demanding was that everybody there dive with him into the dark, murky
depths of that most shameful and embarrassing of all libertarian
vices, "analysis paralysis". I'm sure that you're acquainted with the
type, noisily insisting on being told what hidden agenda was being
concealed through my sinister use of the word "the", three times. Yet,
as you can see for yourself, my Bill of Rights penalty clause is as
clear and concise as any of the first ten amendments, and I stand by
it.

There are, of course, always those who attempt to hyper-legalize
and complicate simple things for their own purposes. Usually, it's
just a geeky, nerdy attention-getting device, sniveling and pathetic,
but innocent. However it pays to keep your guard up. Take a good, hard
look at the willful misinterpretation of the Second Amendment by the
would-be slave-holders in the U.S. government—and the genocidal
U.N.—who know perfectly well what it means, but hate, loathe, and
despise the idea of their potential victims being able to defend
themselves.

It just messes up all their plans, darn it.

For what it's worth, it's reasonably clear that the Supreme Court
was never intended to interpret the Constitution for the rest of us.
It usurped that power for itself way back in 1794. With a notorious
exception or two ("Your people, sir," said Alexander Hamilton to
Thomas Jefferson, in 1792, "is a great beast!"), the Founding Fathers—generally
convinced that individuals can rule themselves better
than they can be ruled by others—intended for all Constitutional
questions to be resolved by juries. One of my principle goals in life
is that the Court be put back in its place and the "English" jury
re-elevated to as close to supreme authority as you can have in a free
country. Lawyers and judges need to be set down half a dozen pegs, as
well.

What's depressing is that the major criticism of my little clause
used to be that it doesn't include a death penalty. My purpose, for
the sake of popularizing Bill of Rights enforcement, was to try and
gather a consensus—this is always a mistake. Personally, I have
always been partial to public hanging, with no tidy little bags over
the head, preferably broadcast on network television. Above all, it
should be a family viewing experience. But in the 20 years since I
wrote that clause, I don't hear that criticism much any more. To me,
it is a measure of how much American blood has thinned in the past two
decades.

We (and I use the pronoun loosely) have been cowed, ladies and
gentlemen. We have been cowed. We have been branded, herded from one
government-selected pasture to another, and compelled to pull the
sledges of our unspeakable masters as we go. We have been milked and
slaughtered, our teeth mined for whatever gold they may contain, our
feet boiled down to make glue. Drained of our life's blood, we have
been skinned to make fashionable togs for the parasitic wives and
mistresses of the nomenklatura, while we and everyone we love have
been cut into steaks and chops to feed them and their inbred repulsive
spawn.

Cowed.

And all largely because the Founding Fathers, by accident or by
deliberation, neglected (sometimes, reading those ten amendments, I
believe I can hear the ghost of Alexander Hamilton snickering behind
the curtains) to supply the Bill of Rights with a proper penalty
clause.

So here's a call to arms—or at least to keyboards—for all
pf those I hear wondering what they can do to advance the cause of
liberty. Build a website, create a FaceBook page, promoting the idea
of amending the Constitution with a Bill of Rights penalty clause. I
have my own work to do, but I will be the first to sign up or "Like"
it.

Go ahead and write in that provision for capital punishment, if
you've got the moxie, but never euphemize or soft-pedal it. Hanging,
which is spectacular and can be accomplished outdoors. is the way to
go. I suggest that it only be applied when someone has died—even
one of their own—in the effort to deprive people of their rights.
Otherwise, they'll come off as martyrs and acquire groupies. And it's
absolutely essential that it only be done following due process of
law.

Tell 'em it's another good reason to decriminalize Cannabis:
nothing delivers quite the same neck-snapping bounce as good hemp
rope.

Most of all, don't allow yourself to be dissuaded by nitpickers,
naysayers, and general purpose killjoys who insist that such an
amendment will never pass. What they don't realize—and still won't,
even once you've explained it to them in short sentences consisting
entirely of one-syllable words—is that passage is not really the
point. The idea, while you campaign as if it were going to be ratified
later this afternoon, is simply to break the ice, to introduce the
concept.

Ironically, once the public climate is right to pass it—when
the other side are sufficiently cowed for a change—we won't need
to.